She just left us.

The Rainbow family is shrinking… but it is always such a joy to remember those extraordinary adventures.

Rainbow Warrior One crew bound for the Labrador seal hunt. Picture taken in February 1981 in Amsterdam just before we took off. Unusual, I can be seen on it with my special hair cut,…

I do not know how we managed, but it seems that with this Greenpeace boat we were very often in the wrong place at the wrong time. I confirm that crossing the Atlantic ocean in the winter, following the shorter north route is exactly what you should NEVER do !

For 13 days, it felt like being in the drum of a washing machine. We arrived in Canada washed, rinsed, spinned, covered with bruises and with a wounded captain. Two years later, the European Union closed its borders to seal products and the hunt crashed to a near zero for three decades. One of the many major Greenpeace victories.

After this picture was taken, the RAINBOW WARRIOR never came back to Europe. She got sunk in New Zealand in 1985 during a terrorist attack ordered by French president Francois Mitterrand, one crew killed, but that is another story.

From left : Chris Robinson, Gijs Thieme, Tim Mark, Tom van Meurs, John Brouwer, Pierre Gleizes, Sallie Austin, Athel von Koettlitz, Steve Skinner, Peter Pauling, Wolfgang X, Berend van Assen, X (Journalist), Marleen Lefevre and Willem Beekman.

© collection Pierre Gleizes, www.pierregleizes.com

For french readers, the full story of this campaign and many more can be read in my book « Rainbow Warrior mon Amour  » Glenat 2011